


General Wolf Rules For Life

by thatdamneddame



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Ficlet, Get Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-21 04:19:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdamneddame/pseuds/thatdamneddame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eat, Rest, Rove in Between. Derek is old enough to know he knows nothing. Derek has lived enough to know he doesn't know what is to come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	General Wolf Rules For Life

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this poem](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mea3ea6hB51qayg1oo1_500.jpg) going around tumblr. Google informs me that it's by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.
> 
> prettyasadiagram I love you forever and you can probably use this against me for a very long time. Sorry.

**1\. Eat**

The dinner table had always been filled with laughter, before the fire. Filled with his Aunt Betty’s baking and his dad’s cooking and Laura and Jana bickering like sisters when they were only actually cousins.

It takes a lot to be a werewolf and it takes a lot to run with wolves. They ate well and they ate often and they went to bed with full bellies and love in their hearts.

It’s harder after, but. But.

Derek is old enough to know he knows nothing. Derek has lived enough to know he doesn’t know what is to come.

 

**2\. Rest**

There is no rest for the dead, they say, but Peter never really rested and he never really died and Derek wonders if now his Uncle’s mind, bright and shining and sharp, will finally be silent.

Derek goes home and sleeps for three days. Peter was many things, all of them bad, but he was still family.

He wakes up and breathes for what feels like the first time, the ash and soot from the fire, so many years ago, finally gone from his lungs.

 

**3\. Rove in between**

The betas don’t understand the pull of the moon, the rising of the tides, the way that the world is in their bones. That they are living and powerful and alive. The bite is a gift but they still don’t understand it, not yet.

Derek wonders what freedom feels like for those who can’t run through the forest at night. Wonders what it tastes like for them, if not like the sharp bite of pine and the ice of a brooke at night. He is a man and he is a wolf. Derek runs through the forest and walks the line inbetween. Understands that’s where happiness truly lies.

 

**4\. Render loyalty**

Isaac stays. Isaac never leaves. Isaac wanders and Isaac dabbles but Isaac always comes back and Derek always lets him. Gives his space to breath and space to be.

Erica and Boyd take time. They are broken in a way Derek doesn’t understand. Or maybe he is broken in a way they don’t yet know. They return, though, in the end. Understand that faults do not make a man and faults do not define a man. Derek tries for them and he is surprised to find that it works.

There is no hope for Scott. There never was. But Stiles. Stiles is a surprise. He saves Derek’s life and Derek saves his in return and no matter what Derek does he just won’t leave. After a while, he stops trying. Let’s Stiles worm his way in because Derek doesn’t really know what he’d do without him. Not anymore.

 

**5\. Love the children**

Derek is twenty-four. He is too young to be an alpha. Too young to be what these teenagers really need, but the first step is admitting you have a problem. No family is perfect and Derek thinks that’s what this is, a family.

He told Scott that the bite made them brothers. Derek thinks his bite gave him children he was too young to have. But they are his and they are brilliant and when they run through the woods, nipping at each other’s heels, Derek thinks there is no place he’d rather be.

 

**6\. Cavil in the moonlight**

Rivalry is inevitable. For the most part, the betas sort themselves out.

Stiles, though, yells in the moonlight and asks _what the hell were you thinking_ and Derek wonders why no one asked him that years ago.

Derek tells him the truth because he thinks that’s all he can give: _I can’t lose you_.

The stuttering of Stiles’s breathe is as loud as a branch snapping in the moonlight.

 

**7\. Tune your ears**

If Derek tries, he can listen to the beating of your heart. If he listens, really listens, he can hear Stiles’s laughing across town, delighted and loved, happy that he has his father once more.

It’s not a sound meant for him, but Derek guards it jealously nonetheless.

 

**8\. Attend to the bones**

Only Laura had a body to bury. Cremation is not the way of wolves, but it was all Derek was left with. He plants wolfsbane at their graves and thinks that they way he can’t really breathe is something he deserves.

Stiles is there, sometimes. The Sheriff others. Never together. Men like them, they understand the silence of graves. Some things must always be held sacred.

 

**9\. Make love**

Stiles kisses like he lives, like he’s only got one shot. He touches Derek like he’s unafraid and Derek remembers when Stiles’s pulse used to quicken with something that wasn’t lust.

For years Derek thought that there would be no one but Kate. Now, though, Derek wishes there was no one but Stiles. Derek believes in holding on to the things that he holds dear. Believes in love and trust and family and Stiles and there is nothing to do but kiss Stiles until he’s breathless. To let Stiles know with the thrust of his hips, his mouth hot on Stiles’s neck, that this is real and Derek isn’t going anywhere.

They way Stiles moans into his mouth lets Derek know he understands.

 

**10\. Howl often**

Wolves howl to find their pack. Men aren’t that simple. Derek isn’t really either and he’s not both but with Stiles at his side and his pack behind him, there is only one thing Derek feels when he howls to the moon: _joy_.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Keeping Things Whole](https://archiveofourown.org/works/593874) by [prettyasadiagram](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyasadiagram/pseuds/prettyasadiagram)




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